Seriously, he's the man in charge of Disney's creative branch now. He's the former head creative person from Pixar, who was brought on to right the company during the Disney/Pixar reconciliation. That guy is awesome and does amazing things and (usually) doesn't allow crap to be produced under his watch.
I only wish Lucas had given up Lucasfilm 20 years ago. I met my wife via Star Wars fandom, but I've ceased being a fan a long long time ago.
That being said, John Carter of Mars does not give me high hopes for an adaptation of Timothy Zahn's books... But I'll remain cautiously optimistic, for now!
Re: We need to pass laws to make unlawful activities illegal
Can anyone (without having a laughing fit) please explain why we need new laws to make illegal activities illegal?
I'll take a shot at it: If you're a citizen of country A, and you break the laws of my country (B) on the Internet, currently I can't have you arrested. (Unless country B in this case is the USA, but for the sake of argument let's forget about that for this moment.)
So maybe they want to fix that little "loophole" in the law.
That way, all those criminals won't get away with insulting the President/Monarch/Prophet or whatever other crazy laws these dictators like to impose on their subjects.
I'm allowing for the chance that there are some nations out there that I am unaware of that don't fit that bill. I'm pretty optimistic about Iceland, for instance.
lately?
When did I say they were better in the past? It doesn't matter, anyway. The only relevant data is their current behavior.
How bad the U.N. really is... Or at least the General Assembly.
Sure, it's a good idea in principle: A forum for all the world's nations to get together and talk things out. Heck, that's a great idea!
The problem is when people want to give such a body any sort of power, or allow it any sort of regulatory control--primarily because it's got representatives from every nation!
Hey, guess what! Most nations in the world are despotic cesspits which are diametrically opposed to the concepts of freedom and liberty for their subjects! And yes, I use the word subject, as opposed to citizen, because that's how they view people within their borders.
Think about it this way: we know how bad the U.S. is lately in the realm of protecting their citizens' rights. Now consider the fact that the U.S. is probably still one of the best nations in the world in that respect, especially in regards to protecting freedom of speech. Scared yet?
The majority of UN member states are either:
1) dictatorships
2) ruled by religious fundamentalism
or
3) both of the above
As such, ANY policy put forward by the General Assembly is going to reflect their priorities: Control of individuals and protection of their power.
Hey no sweat, you had me wondering! Which led to me typing in $0.01 and being treated to a message that said "You seem to have no heart! Please fill out this captcha and prove you're human!", the hilarity of which was well worth the price of admission.
Meanwhile, DRM-free Book Bundle Breaks $1m in Sales
Kinda interesting to see this article juxtaposed with the earlier article about the Humble eBook Bundle.
If people stopped giving money to jerks like Amazon and started giving even a fraction of that amount directly to authors, I think it'd greatly improve everyone's situation...
Re: Re: Re: Get it for free? Come on. It's not free at all
You know, I'm kinda a newcomer to the comments section here. I've seen references to this bob guy before, but I've come to realize he's really something you have to see for yourself, in all his glory.
Wow. Do you just hate anything good and positive on principle? I suppose society needs people like that, that question everything, so that we don't just get caught in our echo chamber...
Anyway... Bob, they're DRM free. No one is locked out. If you can't pay the price they're asking, go torrent a copy somewhere. You won't be supporting the writers, or the charities, but nothing is preventing you from getting at the "knowledge in those books".
No it's not. It never has been. The minimum to receive Steam keys has always been $1, but you can put in $0.01. Try it right now. It'll show you a picture of a starving artist, make a joke about you having no heart, and require you to do a captcha to prove you're an actual person, but it'll totally take a $0.01 donation.
$13.94 is what they are paying (on average), how can consumers get all this for free ?? (including the extra's)?
Ah, I love this. I love it when people make comments like this, exposing the fact that they've never donated to the Humble Bundle, and therefore probably don't have a charitable bone in their body.
Let me explain it slowly, and I'll try to use small words:
Every Humble Bundle offers a DRM-free, completely unsecured torrent file for every product that is in the bundle.
Every. Humble. Bundle
Every. Product.
DRM Free.
BitTorrent.
No login required.
So all it takes is ONE person to pay $0.01, and share the torrent file, and we can all download the books/software/music files/whatever for free! Forever! And one person to pay above average, and share the associated torrents for those files.
And yet they pull in over a million dollars.
And yet the average donation keeps going up.
Longtime Humble Bundle fans will remember that during the first Humble Bundle, the organizers actually addressed "piracy". They pointed out that many of the people "pirating" the stuff were in fact UNABLE to pay for the bundle due to silly restrictions based on their country of origin, or limited by their financial circumstances ($14 is more than many people make in a week in much of the world), nevermind those who just didn't feel like paying. With this in mind, they took no steps to try and prevent "unauthorized" downloads. All they asked is that if you WERE going to download the stuff without paying, to please use the conveniently provided torrents and save them the bandwidth bills.
And they still cleared a million dollars. On DRM-free eBooks.
Yeah, go ahead publishers. Keep pricing your eBooks at $10, to keep from "devaluing" your product. The rest of us will be over here, selling night-infinite amounts of product at a pittance and rolling around in our piles of money...
As others have pointed out, there already is an established opt-out method that preexisted Google: robots.txt. They can control exactly what content they want indexed or not via the well-documented, well-supported, industry-standard method.
However, they are not asking to opt-out. They don't even want to opt out. They want Google to pay newspapers for the privilege of sending traffic to newspapers. The simple solution is to not send them traffic, preventing Google from having to pay them.
They stopped trading on it because the earnings report was released in an incomplete form and without permission. At least, that's why it was stopped yesterday. I don't know of any other stoppages.
Should pirate bay modus operandi become legal tomorrow, all Hulu/Netfix and similar pay-for-streaming shops will have little reason to exist.
That's completely false. People will pay for a curated service, and they will pay for the benefit of accessing their content anywhere on any device. Both of those features are natural fits for streaming services, and not so much for download services.
And as for the rest of your comment... There's lots of ways to make money, read some of the articles around here once in a while! Concerts are an obvious way, but by far not the only way. I've never been to a Jonathan Coulton concert, but he's gotten more money out of me than any other recording artist in the last ten years...
Perhaps there are a lot of patents because (shock) there is a lot of actual innovation in this area, with new ideas, new systems, and new ways of doing things coming out every day?
Considering patents are currently being granted something like five years after being filed, no, I don't think this has anything to do with the current state of "innovation" in the market and everything to do with the amount of leverage that comes with a large patent portfolio. Leverage you can exert over (actual or potential) competitors.
Also, have you seen these patents? They're laughable. None of them are covering anything non-obvious or innovative, and often in fact are covering things that were already extant years before the patent application was filed.
Also, the only real source of "innovation" (and I use the term very loosely, here, as most of these "innovations" are just obvious extensions on existing concepts) on the software side of the smartphone industry right now doesn't actively seek patent protection for their "innovations"...
Everything you just listed as a positive about DVDs is even more true about a torrented MKV of the movie. Except that the MKV is infinitely more convenient, and available for free. So you're talking about how great it is to pay $5 to be inconvenienced.
Instead of wasting money on printing a useless piece of plastic and then waiting a couple years so I can waste my time digging it out of a bin of crap at Wal Mart, why not just give me the option to download a MKV for $5 upfront? The savings on overhead alone would probably more than offset any theoretical losses from piracy.
Reminds me of a recent observation my coworkers and I made.
I rarely buy DVDs, I find them to be horribly inconvenient. So when I do, I usually buy a collector's edition of whatever I'm buying. I'm a consumer whore and I love pack-in extras. Then I stick the disk in the player, start it up, and am treated to several minutes of unskippable propaganda telling me how evil it is to "steal" movies.
What. The. Fuck.
Not only did I bother to *pay* for something I find mildly inconvenient and I could easily get for free online, but I went the extra mile and paid significantly more to get a pack-in art book or action figure or something. And *I'm* the person you decide to lecture on the evils of piracy?
The same thought process usually follows when I pay twice the normal retail price for a "Collector's Edition" of some video game only to be greeted by some crazy onerous DRM system...
I'm starting to think these content producers are attacking their customer base in this way because they feel a need to attack SOMEONE and we're the only targets they can see. It seems the only sensible solution is to just stop dealing with them altogether...
On the post: George Lucas Finally Relinquishes His Tight Control Of Star Wars... To Mickey Mouse
Re: And just like that....
Seriously, he's the man in charge of Disney's creative branch now. He's the former head creative person from Pixar, who was brought on to right the company during the Disney/Pixar reconciliation. That guy is awesome and does amazing things and (usually) doesn't allow crap to be produced under his watch.
I only wish Lucas had given up Lucasfilm 20 years ago. I met my wife via Star Wars fandom, but I've ceased being a fan a long long time ago.
That being said, John Carter of Mars does not give me high hopes for an adaptation of Timothy Zahn's books... But I'll remain cautiously optimistic, for now!
On the post: UN: The Problem With The Internet Today Is It's Just Too Open & Terrorists Might Use It
Re: We need to pass laws to make unlawful activities illegal
I'll take a shot at it: If you're a citizen of country A, and you break the laws of my country (B) on the Internet, currently I can't have you arrested. (Unless country B in this case is the USA, but for the sake of argument let's forget about that for this moment.)
So maybe they want to fix that little "loophole" in the law.
That way, all those criminals won't get away with insulting the President/Monarch/Prophet or whatever other crazy laws these dictators like to impose on their subjects.
On the post: UN: The Problem With The Internet Today Is It's Just Too Open & Terrorists Might Use It
Re: Re: Maybe People Will Start to Realize
I'm allowing for the chance that there are some nations out there that I am unaware of that don't fit that bill. I'm pretty optimistic about Iceland, for instance.
When did I say they were better in the past? It doesn't matter, anyway. The only relevant data is their current behavior.
On the post: UN: The Problem With The Internet Today Is It's Just Too Open & Terrorists Might Use It
Maybe People Will Start to Realize
Sure, it's a good idea in principle: A forum for all the world's nations to get together and talk things out. Heck, that's a great idea!
The problem is when people want to give such a body any sort of power, or allow it any sort of regulatory control--primarily because it's got representatives from every nation!
Hey, guess what! Most nations in the world are despotic cesspits which are diametrically opposed to the concepts of freedom and liberty for their subjects! And yes, I use the word subject, as opposed to citizen, because that's how they view people within their borders.
Think about it this way: we know how bad the U.S. is lately in the realm of protecting their citizens' rights. Now consider the fact that the U.S. is probably still one of the best nations in the world in that respect, especially in regards to protecting freedom of speech. Scared yet?
The majority of UN member states are either:
1) dictatorships
2) ruled by religious fundamentalism
or
3) both of the above
As such, ANY policy put forward by the General Assembly is going to reflect their priorities: Control of individuals and protection of their power.
On the post: Trent Reznor Talks To Techdirt About His Unconventional New Record Deal, And Why He Still Loves DIY
Re: "the overall story was pretty much what I expected."
On the post: Humble Ebook Bundle Breaks $1 Million; All The Authors Should Be Best Sellers
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Amazon Wipes Customer's Account, Locks All Ebooks, Says 'Find A New Retailer' When She Asks Why
Meanwhile, DRM-free Book Bundle Breaks $1m in Sales
If people stopped giving money to jerks like Amazon and started giving even a fraction of that amount directly to authors, I think it'd greatly improve everyone's situation...
On the post: Humble Ebook Bundle Breaks $1 Million; All The Authors Should Be Best Sellers
Re: Re: Re: Get it for free? Come on. It's not free at all
Wow. Do you just hate anything good and positive on principle? I suppose society needs people like that, that question everything, so that we don't just get caught in our echo chamber...
Anyway... Bob, they're DRM free. No one is locked out. If you can't pay the price they're asking, go torrent a copy somewhere. You won't be supporting the writers, or the charities, but nothing is preventing you from getting at the "knowledge in those books".
On the post: Humble Ebook Bundle Breaks $1 Million; All The Authors Should Be Best Sellers
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Humble Ebook Bundle Breaks $1 Million; All The Authors Should Be Best Sellers
Re:
Ah, I love this. I love it when people make comments like this, exposing the fact that they've never donated to the Humble Bundle, and therefore probably don't have a charitable bone in their body.
Let me explain it slowly, and I'll try to use small words:
Every Humble Bundle offers a DRM-free, completely unsecured torrent file for every product that is in the bundle.
Every. Humble. Bundle
Every. Product.
DRM Free.
BitTorrent.
No login required.
So all it takes is ONE person to pay $0.01, and share the torrent file, and we can all download the books/software/music files/whatever for free! Forever! And one person to pay above average, and share the associated torrents for those files.
And yet they pull in over a million dollars.
And yet the average donation keeps going up.
Longtime Humble Bundle fans will remember that during the first Humble Bundle, the organizers actually addressed "piracy". They pointed out that many of the people "pirating" the stuff were in fact UNABLE to pay for the bundle due to silly restrictions based on their country of origin, or limited by their financial circumstances ($14 is more than many people make in a week in much of the world), nevermind those who just didn't feel like paying. With this in mind, they took no steps to try and prevent "unauthorized" downloads. All they asked is that if you WERE going to download the stuff without paying, to please use the conveniently provided torrents and save them the bandwidth bills.
And they still cleared a million dollars. On DRM-free eBooks.
Yeah, go ahead publishers. Keep pricing your eBooks at $10, to keep from "devaluing" your product. The rest of us will be over here, selling night-infinite amounts of product at a pittance and rolling around in our piles of money...
On the post: Brazilian Newspapers Apparently Don't Want Traffic; They All Opt Out Of Google News
Re: Re:
However, they are not asking to opt-out. They don't even want to opt out. They want Google to pay newspapers for the privilege of sending traffic to newspapers. The simple solution is to not send them traffic, preventing Google from having to pay them.
On the post: Brazilian Newspapers Apparently Don't Want Traffic; They All Opt Out Of Google News
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Spanish Gov't Wants To Make It A Crime To Photograph Cops
Re: Re: Ripe for abuse
On the post: Brazilian Newspapers Apparently Don't Want Traffic; They All Opt Out Of Google News
Rupert Murdoch tried this
On the post: Apparently If You Explain Many Ways That Artists Can Make Money Outside Of Copyright, You're Against Artists Getting Paid
Re: Re: Re: Let's not "push it"
On the post: Apparently If You Explain Many Ways That Artists Can Make Money Outside Of Copyright, You're Against Artists Getting Paid
Re: Let's not "push it"
That's completely false. People will pay for a curated service, and they will pay for the benefit of accessing their content anywhere on any device. Both of those features are natural fits for streaming services, and not so much for download services.
And as for the rest of your comment... There's lots of ways to make money, read some of the articles around here once in a while! Concerts are an obvious way, but by far not the only way. I've never been to a Jonathan Coulton concert, but he's gotten more money out of me than any other recording artist in the last ten years...
On the post: There Are 250,000 Active Patents That Impact Smartphones; Representing One In Six Active Patents Today
Re:
Considering patents are currently being granted something like five years after being filed, no, I don't think this has anything to do with the current state of "innovation" in the market and everything to do with the amount of leverage that comes with a large patent portfolio. Leverage you can exert over (actual or potential) competitors.
Also, have you seen these patents? They're laughable. None of them are covering anything non-obvious or innovative, and often in fact are covering things that were already extant years before the patent application was filed.
Also, the only real source of "innovation" (and I use the term very loosely, here, as most of these "innovations" are just obvious extensions on existing concepts) on the software side of the smartphone industry right now doesn't actively seek patent protection for their "innovations"...
On the post: There Are 250,000 Active Patents That Impact Smartphones; Representing One In Six Active Patents Today
Re: Re: Re:
And method patents shouldn't exist, especially not the particularly tortured interpretation of them currently in force in the United States...
On the post: Yet Again, File Sharing Correlated To Biggest Buyers
Re: Re: Re: Wrong Target
Instead of wasting money on printing a useless piece of plastic and then waiting a couple years so I can waste my time digging it out of a bin of crap at Wal Mart, why not just give me the option to download a MKV for $5 upfront? The savings on overhead alone would probably more than offset any theoretical losses from piracy.
On the post: Yet Again, File Sharing Correlated To Biggest Buyers
Wrong Target
I rarely buy DVDs, I find them to be horribly inconvenient. So when I do, I usually buy a collector's edition of whatever I'm buying. I'm a consumer whore and I love pack-in extras. Then I stick the disk in the player, start it up, and am treated to several minutes of unskippable propaganda telling me how evil it is to "steal" movies.
What. The. Fuck.
Not only did I bother to *pay* for something I find mildly inconvenient and I could easily get for free online, but I went the extra mile and paid significantly more to get a pack-in art book or action figure or something. And *I'm* the person you decide to lecture on the evils of piracy?
The same thought process usually follows when I pay twice the normal retail price for a "Collector's Edition" of some video game only to be greeted by some crazy onerous DRM system...
I'm starting to think these content producers are attacking their customer base in this way because they feel a need to attack SOMEONE and we're the only targets they can see. It seems the only sensible solution is to just stop dealing with them altogether...
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